The present invention relates to an erasable electrically programmable read only memory cell of a type used in VLSI technology.
Conventional erasable electrically programmable read only memory cells (EEPROM's) use three transistors per cell and occupy an area on a chip or wafer of the order of 300 square microns. Their large size is due to the requirement of obtaining a good coupling to the floating gate from the control gate of the floating gate transistor used in the cell so that any voltage applied to the control gate will result in a relatively large voltage on the floating gate. One way of achieving this large coupling is to make the capacitance present between the control gate and the floating gate large relative to that between the floating gate and the channel. Any attempt to reduce the thickness of the interlevel oxide between the floating gate and the control gate to increase the capacitance across these electrodes results in a deterioration in the data retention of the device. Increasing the size of the control gate and floating gate in order to increase this capacitance taken up valuable surface area on the chip.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved EEPROM cell structure. It is a further object to provide an EEPROM cell which is smaller than presently known structures.